Tex
Freelancer Agent Texashttp://rvb.roosterteeth.com/forum/viewTopic.php?id=2214533 (real name Allison and nicknamed Tex for short) is a main character in Red vs. Blue. She is voiced by Burnie Burns in her initial appearance, and Kathleen Zuelch thereafter. Of the eight main characters, Tex was the last to appear, not debuting until Episode 10. She is a mercenary, but is most often affiliated with Blue Team despite not being an official member. Her back story and previous relationship with fellow Blue Team member Church are key elements in the plot. Her common nickname is Tex; according to Church, this is because she is from Texas, and her Freelancer codename mirrors this. With her Special Operations training, she is the most competently lethal member of the Blood Gulch cast, with the possible exception of Sheila (who is literally a tank). Role in Plot Project Freelancer ]]Some time before the events of Red vs. Blue, Tex was part of an experimental program that implanted artificial intelligence (AI) constructs into the suits of soldiers to enhance military performance. Other known members of this unit are Wyoming, Washington, and York. According to Tex, everyone in the unit was codenamed after one of the 49 then-remaining US states (Florida no longer exists). Her Freelancer code name is Texas (although stating it was Nevada in a sarcastic response to a stupid question ). She is also Church's ex-girlfriend, and were close to being married once, but Tex's unfaithfulness and overall attitude ruined that. It is also apparent that she has known Church since at least high school. In her missions, she uses a voice distorter to make her voice sound like a man's. She was secretly at the Bjordinal Cryogenics Research Facility and planted a transmitter to the Mother of Inventions MAC cannon, destroying the Oil Rig. Training Match In the episode Captive Audience, she appears as the new recruit of Project Freelancer, knocking down Agents Wyoming, York, and Maine in a training match. The next episode, Introductions, continues the training simulation. Tex easily defeats York, Maine and Wyoming due to their lack of teamwork in the gravity staff and hand-to-hand combat portions. Rounds 3 through 9 consisted of training using lock-down paint. However in the 9th Round Maine and Wyoming begin to use live rounds instead of the lock-down paint. York tries to help Tex but she berates him for abandoning his team. Eventually Wyoming lands a shot on Tex's shoulder causing it to short out and her not being able to use it. However she still is able to best Wyoming and Maine. Maine is not fully disabled by the lock-down paint and fruitlessly attempts to attack Tex, only to be fired on with more lock-down paint. Before his armor hardened completely, Maine managed to throw a live grenade at Tex. Tex effortlessly dodges it and the grenade lands next to a dazed York. She attempts to save York by hitting him with enough lock-down paint to quickly harden his armor and protect him from the explosion. When the Agents who were watching come down with medics to help York, three black-uniformed men try and help Tex who snaps at them not to touch her and pushes them away. Carolina, watching her, notices her arm spark again and notes this as interesting. Mission for the Sarcophagus She is secretly sent by the Director on the mission to capture the Sarcophogus, where she was planting a transmitter for the Mother of Invention's ''Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. Carolina, York, and Washington see this and Carolina confronts her and realizes that she was also the one who destroyed the oil rig. Before anything happens between the two the team is surrounded by dozens of soldiers. The transmitter activates and the ''Mother of Invention destroys the building. Tex excapes using a jetpack and aids in getting the Sarcophogus onto a Pelican. Once it's secure, she jumps out to continue her mission. She is later seen requesting for F.I.L.S.S. to drop a pod. F.I.L.S.S. won't as a safety protocole but is forced to by the Director. Its revealed that the contents were a motorbike and Rocket Launcher and Tex drives through a window onto the highway with these only to be pursued by two Insurrectionist Warthogs. She destroys these Warthogs with her Rocket Launcher while still on the motorcycle. She then sees a Hornet attacking Team A and goes on a ramp sending her in the air, and destroys one of the two Hornets attacking them. She is seen again chasing after the remaining Hornet, with a soldier carrying the briefcase, with Team A. Carolina tells Tex she cannot get it first and the two race. Tex tells Carolina to fall back but she refuses. Tex then throws her motorcycle at the Hornet destroying it but the soldier flies away on his jetpack. Tex is later there when Carolina sees the briefcase in front of her. Tex takes it, contacts command, tells Carolina better luck next time, and jumps off the highway. After the mission, Tex was appointed as No. 1 on the Freelancer leaderboard. Battle at the Longshore Shipyards Tex wasn't present during the inital insertion of the Insurrectionist base at Longshore, but she did make her presence known when Carolina, Wyoming, York and Washington are being held back by constant machine gun turret fire from the Twin Insurrectionist Turret Soldiers outside the bunker where the Insurrectionist Leader and C.T. are heading by running straight into the line of fire using her cloaking unit. Carolina soon gave chase realizing who it was. Carolina and Tex located C.T. and the Insurrectionist Leader. C.T. reveals her knowledge of the Director's crimes, and that Tex is really just a "shadow", enraging the latter into attacking her. In the ensuing battle, Tex fatally wounded C.T. with a tomahawk, despite Carolina's protests. The Insurrectionist Leader, heartbroken, escaped with the dying C.T. inside an escape vehicle and assumed her armor & identity. Back aboard the Mother of Invention After the mission, Tex is seen in the training room of the Mother of Invention, where the Director and Counselor discuss her "increase in aggression levels". Tex tells them that she is tired of training and wishes for something more challenging. They are suddenly interrupted by Carolina, who demands to talk to the Director. She makes a remark about Tex being the Director's pet, which angers the latter. The Director orders the two to stand down and tells Carolina that she can have either Eta or Iota, the next AI fragments due for implantation. Carolina demands for them both, despite the fact that the surgery will delay the implantations of Washington and South Dakota. After the Director agrees to her decision, Tex compliments Carolina on her "gutsy move" and wishes her surgery to go well. Joining the Blue Team Tex first appears in Church's flashback about how she killed all of the Blues on Sidewinder (except for him). When she appears at Blue Base, she terrifies Tucker and Caboose, while using the latter as a target. During her assault on Red Base, she sticks a plasma grenade to Donut, and manages to knock out Grif (While Simmons faints), but is cornered by Sarge and Lopez, the former uses the butt of his shotgun to knock her out, thus damaging her voice distorter. The Reds are very surprised to find out they were almost defeated by a girl. Church's ghost and the other two Blues, Tucker and Caboose, are then forced to break her out, at which point Church reveals that Tex is his former girlfriend. In exchange for breaking her out, she agrees to aid them for the duration of their time in Blood Gulch. As she repairs Sheila to attack the Reds, Church and the other Blues make a plan to keep her there to remove the AI from her, but when she completes the repairs and begins her attack. It isn't long, however, before she is killed by the Red Team rookie, Donut, who threw a plasma grenade a quarterway across the canyon in revenge for her previously injuring him. Before she dies, she tells Church the AI is gone. Pursuit for O'Malley In the miniseries that was focused on Tex, Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind, it is revealed that any bad AIs were to be removed. However, Tex's AI, O'Malley, resisted removal and Tex, with O'Malley still in her system, escaped the facility. Unlike Church, she does not reappear immediately after her death. Season Two begins three months after her death, and she does not appear until halfway through. When she does, she reveals that O'Malley has jumped into Caboose, and she is now driven by an urge to destroy him. To do this, she reasons that forcing him out of Caboose's Mind while everyone in the canyon has their radios off will eliminate him. She enlists Church's aid in driving O'Malley from Caboose's head and sends Tucker to turn off the radios of the Reds, but their plan fails after everyone forgets about a medic named Doc, who was previously abandoned by both teams and knew nothing of the events taking place. Doc then becomes the unwilling host of O'Malley. After forcing the AI out of Caboose's head, Tex disappears until the end of the season, when she possesses the body of a robot built by Sarge as the condition of a surrender. Throughout Season Three, she again devotes herself to eliminating O'Malley, while at the same time protecting Tucker from Wyoming, whom O'Malley has hired. Even when propelled into the future, she is driven to destroy the AI. Lone Adventures .]]In Season 4, when the Blue Team is blackmailed into aiding Crunchbite on his own quest, she joins his group in the hopes of gaining Tucker's sword as a reward. However, when the team finds an alien ship, which Tex declares as her own, it is shot down by Wyoming. As a result, Tex pursues him in a fury. This is followed up in Out of Mind, where Tex hunts down Wyoming, hopefully to also find O'Malley in the process and destroy him. She follows him to O'Malley's fortress and, aided by York, a former infiltration specialist, breaks in, only to find O'Malley absent and Wyoming, with two others, lying in wait. The two foot soldiers are quickly dispatched, but York is killed by Wyoming. Tex then corners Wyoming (with help from York's then-fading AI Delta) to find out details of where O'Malley has gone and who he has jumped into. Return to Blood Gulch Tex makes an appearance in Episode 86. Sneaking up behind the Blue Team and launching an attack on them as she isn't sure who exactly O'Malley infected. The Blues manage to convince her that they are aware of the situation, but Tex ends up becoming enraged once more when she realizes that the Blues have a new female recruit. Sometime thereafter, Tex - along with Church and Tucker - stage an offensive on the Red Team's base after being ordered by Vic Jr. to do so. After taking a non-lethal shot (to her ass) ) from Tucker using Church's sniper rifle (and mistakenly beating up Church in the process), the three capture the empty base. Tex is then radioed by Caboose with information regarding O'Malley's current whereabouts. According to Caboose, the AI had jumped into "the Blue leader," whom Tex mistakes for Church, and holds him at gunpoint. He explains that he was never officially promoted to the position after Captain Butch Flowers' death. She later planned to work with O'Malley to win the war by controlling Junior and the aliens, but she was presumed dead after Andy detonated and their ship crashed in Valhalla over a year later due to Wyoming's time distortion unit. She was taken to Blue Base there and along with Gamma and O'Malley was captured by The Meta. She was destroyed in Chapter 19 of Reconstruction in the EMP. Epsilon-Tex Tex was brought back into the series in Revelation as Epsilon-Tex, a version of Tex created by Epsilon. For more information on this Tex visit the page Epsilon-Tex. Relationships Tex is somewhat tolerant of the rest of the Blood Gulch cast and their various eccentricities. One of the most telling parts of Tex relationship with the rest of her team is in the 100th episode of the series when she and O'Malley talk in Caboose's head in order to talk about O'Malley's plan to use Junior to win the war. Tex asks him that she had his word that none of them would be hurt, possibly speaking about the others in Blue Team. And finally her last line of the Blood Gulch Chronicles is when Church tells her to not to go through with O'Malley's plan. She replies, in a oddly gentle voice, "Goodbye." Themes Attitude The fact that Tex is generally regarded as mean is played on at various times throughout the series. To cement the issue early on, Tucker asks if, without her A.I., she is just a "sweet, down-home girl", and Church replies that she "w''as always a rotten bitch''" but after becoming a Freelancer is more like "a rotten bitch with cybernetic enchancements". Tex, however, does not regard herself as mean, explaining to Tucker in Season 1, "I wouldn't say I'm mean, I just get hired to do mean things". When Tucker presses the issue by saying she enjoys it, she brushes it off, claiming it's important to enjoy what one does. The Reds refer to her as "that mean chick from the Blue Team" when she's not around, and the Blue team have admitted to calling her "Bitch-pants McCrabby" except in the case of Caboose who justifies himself by saying that he just calls her "Mrs. McCrabby". Even the AI program touches on her aggressiveness; when she narrates her flashback to the event in "Out of Mind", she claims that the AIs were designed to make the subjects faster or stronger, or in Tex's case, "just plain meaner". Payment As a Freelancer, she will jump at any task if the price is right, no matter how simplistic the task may be or how small the cost (she was eager to tear off Grif's arm when Tucker offered her $10 to do so). For Tex, money is her primary motivation to get tasks done. When the Alien's team depart the fortress, Church and Tex remain behind, until Church explains that quests usually result in a reward of some kind, at which point he turns around and finds her gone. When she catches up to the team, she strikes a bargain with them, agreeing to aid the Alien in exchange for the quest's reward. She agrees to this and joins the team. Soon after, however, it is revealed that the Alien has not been entirely honest, as it becomes apparent that the sword is primarily a key, to Tex's chagrin. Sexuality It is obvious that Tex is straight as Church has said before, that he and Tex were going to get married but indications show that she wasn't ready to commit as he said in one episode that she was always running off with other men or stealing money from him during the relationship. Jokes about her gender were made often by Andy the Bomb, such as "Hey, Tex! I bet you haven't had your hands on a ball this big since your morning scratch!" or "Hey, C'mon! Its just a joke between the two of us guys right?". It can be implied that Tex is attractive as Tucker repeatedly makes jokes about her in a sexual manner, though it could be that at this time, she was the only female in the group thus making her an easy target for Tucker's signature 'Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow' jokes. Inconsistencies *In the song played at the end of episode 33, the lyrics state that Tex's name is Beth. This is non-canon as her name has been stated later in the series by Rooster Teeth as being Allison. :*"Have you heard the story of a girl named Beth, now known as Tex? Her life's tale is a bloody trail and her name fits like a glove. Her daddy sighed as she slammed the door, she'd said to him, I'm Beth no more, my life's dream is to kill for green, but first I'll join the corps. Her daddy said, you're just a girl, what makes you think that you won't sink? My name is Tex and like a hex, my playground is the world." *There was much debate over Tex's codename being either Nevada or Texas, due to Tex initially declaring herself to being Agent Nevada being contradicted numerous times later in the series by other Freelancers. In the sponsor-only forum on the Rooster Teeth site, it was stated that, *In the beginning of the series Tex was able to flip Sheila over so she was back on her tracks. Yet later, when Red Team and Blue Team assaulted O’Malley’s base she was unable to lift the bomb (Andy), whereas Caboose was able to do so. This may be the case because at this point, Tex was in possession of a robot body devised by Sarge- it is possible that Sarge designed Tex's new body to be physically weaker in order to give the Reds an advantage in combat against her (or just another case of Sarge's incompetance when it comes to robotics as shown by Lopez). In episode 10 of Revelation she seems to have regained her incredible strength, catching and subsequently tossing a very large cargo container filled with medical supplies at the Reds, this is most likely due to the fact she now inhabits a new robot body which appears to have been created by the Director, no doubt returning her Incredible strength and agility. :*Another possibility for why Tex could flip Sheila in season 1 is that she was in possession of Omega at the time, who was responsible for running some of her equipment, possibly her super strength. This could also be why the Meta was able to perform such ridiculous feats of strength once having acquired it (such as lifting a Warthog and hurling it at Grif along with a whole lot of other objects, including multiple containers and a comm tower). However, in Revelation, she manages to punch through metal, hold up a several-ton crate, and basically punch Grif, Tucker, Sarge, and Simmons so hard they go flying. The body Tex was in at the time, though, was a Project Freelancer-built body, as opposed to the robotic body constructed by Sarge which she had previously used, which could resolve the otherwise inexplicable issue of her strength. :*Another explanation for her varying strength is that the original mechanical body she had in Season 1 may have been designed for combat and therefore had strength equivalent to that of a Spartan II. Once Tex was given a replacement body (Francisco Montegue Zanzibar) she lost her strength because that mechanical body was one of the many "Church robots" just painted black and those robot bodies were not necessarily meant for combat, but merely to hide the Alpha from the Freelancers. In Revelation, Tex may be using a body of the same design as her original from season 1 or even the very same body recovered from Blood Gulch since, the logic behind this is the fact that Tex's body had been stored in a metal box and was referred to as the Director's "secret project". :*Tex couldn't pick up Andy because of the mechanics of Halo, since a bomb could only be filmed in game with specific team colors on (There was no black colored team choice). Initially this is why only Sarge and Caboose are seen in the same scenes as Andy. *When Tex was alive, her armor gave her the ability to turn invisible. Yet when Sarge builds her a new robot body she still has the ability as shown when attacking the Zealots while trying to help the alien on its "sacred quest". She also had this ability when fighting Wyoming, and trying to stealthily take him out. It is possible that she made sure to recover the upgrade sometime after her death, or that Church might have taken it, then later given it back to her. It is also possible, however unlikely that when Sarge was building her a new body he grabbed the the invisibility part from her old armor and put it in her new one. She does not have this ability from Reconstruction and after because the Meta had taken her cloaking. *Conisidering Season 9 and 10 prequels, it is odd that Tex had Mark 6 instead of Mark 5 like she did in Season 1. Skills and Abilities , Wyoming, and Maine.]]Tex is one of the most skilled Freelancers in the series, though this is more noticeable during Season 9 than any other appearance. During her first appearance in Introductions, she was capable of fighting and defeating York, Wyoming and Maine, completely overwhelming them in every round of the training match, which is incredible as York and Wyoming were ranked 2nd and 3rd on the charts at the time. During the entire match, she only took one injury, which was a shot in the shoulder by Wyoming when he and Maine started using live ammunition during the match. During the match, Tex displays great hand-to-hand combat skills, accuracy, gunslinging capabilities and pugil stick usage, all of which were great enough to fight and defeat the aforementioned three during the match with seemingly very little effort. She also displays a certain degree of martial arts prowess during The Sarcophagus, where she took out a number of soldiers with the help of her cloaking armor enhancement. In addition, Tex seems to have accuracy with her guns, as she was able to hit and destroy both a Hornet and a Warthog with a blast from her Rocket launcher and take out multiple enemies with an SMG, all of which while riding on a moving motorcycle. She further displayed her accuracy as she launched her motorcycle at a Hornet off of a ramp in mid-air, destroying it, though this didn't kill the enemy she had intended to kill. in mid-air.]]During The Blood Gulch Chronicles, she displayed enough skill with grenades to stick Donut right in the head with a plasma grenade, a favor that Donut later returns. She also displayed enough skill with a Sniper Rifle to knock Lopez's head off of a turret, after which she cried "Headshot!" In conclusion, although Tex is a skilled and capable Freelancer in her own right, it is worth mentioning that because she is an AI enclosed inside of an artifical body; she is not subject to the general weaknesses a normal, "human" fighter faces such as pain, fatigue, muscle failure and the like allowing her to overpower most other opponents through sheer endurance. Failures As Epsilon explained, Tex is based on a now deceased woman Dr. Leonard Church loved, leaving him with only the memory of this. As a result, Tex is fated to fail at everything she does. *In the Season 9 episode, Lifting the Veil, Tex fails to save York from an exploding grenade, causing York's eye to become severely injured. *In the same season, Tex failed to kill an Insurrectionist with her motorcycle. *In Season 10, Tex failed to complete an objective to obtain C.T.'s armor and the stolen information. *In Season 1, when she tries to sneak into Red Base, while she manages to take out Donut and Grif (Simmons faints), she is captured by Sarge and Lopez. *When she goes on an all-out assault later with the intent to kill them, she is later killed by Donut. *In Season 2, her plan to kill O'Malley fails as she did not count on Doc having his radio on. *In Season 3, she once again fails to kill O'Malley when Wyoming shows up and takes her by surprise. *After storming his base, she once again fails to kill O'Malley when he flees. *She also failed to question Wyoming on Omega's location as he teleported away due to Gamma. *In Season 5, when she tries to take Wyoming by surprise, he knocks her out, as he used his time-loop armor enhancement to learn where she was. *She failed to strike a deal with O'Malley as Church showed up and killed him while they were all in Caboose's head. *Just as she was leaving Blood Gulch via the Pelican, Sarge used Andy to blow up and damage the ship. *It is revealed in Revelation that she was unable to rescue the Alpha AI from more experiments (some of which were conducted by Gamma and Omega). By the time she got there, the Alpha was completely broken down and didn't even recognize her. Trivia *Tex is the first Freelancer and female character to appear in the series. *When Rooster Teeth started using Halo 3 to film Red vs Blue, they had to shoot scenes with Tex using the leader traits setting in custom games as the color black had been removed. *Burnie Burns confirmed in an interview with Lets Figure This Out Shizno group that the Tex in Revelation is a new Tex as the original Tex was captured by the Meta and destroyed in the EMP. http://lfto.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-09-22T04_30_06-07_00 References Category: Characters Category:Freelancer Category: Blue Team Category:AI Category:Deceased